Please help me answer this objection to Christianity, fast

[fhansen]

But doesn’t that beg the question of Christianity being right?

He asked why the Indians should believe Christianity, which was handed down from the Christian ancestors, and argues that the Indian religion has also been handed down from parents, and doesn’t understand why the Indians should conform to Christianity when their own religion is how they understand God.

It should be the same God anyway. Tell them they can certainly be open enough to compare notes and if they hear Gods voice through Christianity then maybe they’ll learn something deeper about Him-and vice versa. If not, shake the dust off…As Augustine said-all truth is Gods truth. Or was that Aquinas?

 

[Los_Angeles]

Then you need to explain that desires everyone to be saved and come to knowledge of the truth (1Tim 2:4) regardless of whether or not they can read the Bible. Guadalupe was how God revealed His Son to millions of people who had no access to the Bible.

The Bible is not necessary to salvation. Grace is, and Jesus Christ alone decides how grace is administered. Any Fundamentalist who says the Bible is necessary to salvation while walking around telling people they can be saved by reciting the Sinner’s Prayer, which is not in the Bible, is a hypocrite.

When you say the Bible is not necessary to salvation I do not understand.

Do you have links or references to official Catholic doctrine that teaches that Scripture, one of the three pillars of the Church, is not necessary to salvation?

Also, I was reading about Juan Diego on Wikipedia and from what I gather he was already being taught by missionaries. The miracle was the reason for millions of conversions, but Juan Diego was already leading a chaste life, perhaps the reason for the apparition.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Diego

If anything I have said is against the Catholic Church, let it be anathema.

 

[JackVk]

When you say the Bible is not necessary to salvation I do not understand.

Do you have links or references to official Catholic doctrine that teaches that Scripture, one of the three pillars of the Church, is not necessary to salvation?

Also, I was reading about Juan Diego on Wikipedia and from what I gather he was already being taught by missionaries. The miracle was the reason for millions of conversions, but Juan Diego was already leading a chaste life, perhaps the reason for the apparition.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Diego

If anything I have said is against the Catholic Church, let it be anathema.

Juan Diego doesn’t really apply, because we are talking about English Protestants trying to convert natives in New England and Virginia.

 

[Cat_Herder]

When you say the Bible is not necessary to salvation I do not understand.

Do you have links or references to official Catholic doctrine that teaches that Scripture, one of the three pillars of the Church, is not necessary to salvation?

That’s the kind of knee-jerk reaction that I had when I first devised that post. But put on your thinking cap here.

Can aborted babies be saved? Yes. Did they ever read the Bible? No.
Can children below reading age be saved? Did they ever read the Bible? No.
Can the illiterate be saved? Yes. Did they ever read the Bible? No.
Can the deaf-blind be saved? Yes. Did they ever read the Bible? No.
Can the mentally retarded be saved? Yes. Are they able to understand the Bible? No.

Remember, I did not say that the Bible was unimportant, just that access to it, reading it, or doing anything with it is not necessary to salvation.

 

[Cat_Herder]

Juan Diego doesn’t really apply, because we are talking about English Protestants trying to convert natives in New England and Virginia.

The Indian’s words were:

He asked why the Christian God had not given the Biblical revelation to the Indians,

Guadalupe was a revelation by the Christian God to the Indians. The English Protestants in question were out of the loop because they were… English Protestants. Hence they have no way to answer the Indian’s question, but that is because they are Protestants, not because they are Christians.

 

[JackVk]

The Indian’s words were:

Guadalupe was a revelation by the Christian God to the Indians. The English Protestants in question were out of the loop because they were… English Protestants. Hence they have no way to answer the Indian’s question, but that is because they are Protestants, not because they are Christians.

Well, the secular world tends to clump all of Christianity together instead of differentiating between the denominations, usually for the sake of political correctness (or just plain apathy).

 

[onenow1]

I had to read a letter of a Native American speaking to a missionary around 1805 for my US history class. He asked why the Christian God had not given the Biblical revelation to the Indians, and why the Christian religion is the right way to worship the “Great Spirit”, as he called God. Answer?

Job 38: 4, "Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding.

They know Him now and Jesus commission to the Apostles,was to teach and spread the gospel to all nations. It contiues even today. History concurs with the existance of Jesus the gospels also are a historical account of the Divine Jesus. The circumstantial evidence is, overwhelming. To many Christins died for their religion to discount it; of course you must first have faith.:twocents:

God Bless

 

[Cat_Herder]

Well, the secular world tends to clump all of Christianity together instead of differentiating between the denominations, usually for the sake of political correctness (or just plain apathy).

I don’t see why you should capitulate to a secular definition of Christianity (an oxymoron if ever there was one).

 

[JackVk]

I don’t see why you should capitulate to a secular definition of Christianity (an oxymoron if ever there was one).

trying to play on their level.

 

[Cat_Herder]

trying to play on their level.

Their level is atheism so I suggest not sinking to that.

I think you should march in there (perhaps with a Guadalupe tilma full of roses) and explain that Jesus Christ, not the Bible, is the living Word of God and that He can and does reach people who do not have access to the Bible, which is only the written Word of God. By the way, the Bible itself says so.

[BIBLEDRB]Acts 17:23[/BIBLEDRB]
[BIBLEDRB]Romans 1:20[/BIBLEDRB]

The “unknown god” known to the Greeks or the “Great Spirit” known to the Native Americans are fragmentary bits of truth which await the exposition of definitive revelation. The Great Spirit is a fragment of the truth; English Protestantism a more complete but distorted version; and Catholicism the complete Truth.

 

[Tonitz]

An Inuit hunter asked the local missionary priest: “If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?” “No,” said the priest, “not if you did not know.” “Then why,” asked the Inuit earnestly, “did you tell me?”

There is a story, which is fairly well known, about when the missionaries came to Africa. They had the Bible and we, the natives, had the land. They said “Let us pray,” and we dutifully shut our eyes. When we opened them, why, they now had the land and we had the Bible. ~Desmond M. Tutu, “Religious Human Rights and the Bible”

[The true Indian] sees no need for setting apart one day in seven as a holy day, because to him all days are God’s days. The first American mingled with his pride a singular humility. Spiritual arrogance was foreign to his nature and teaching. ~Ohiyesa of the Santee Sioux

Frankly, if you by your example inspire someone to ask “What is it that makes you so inspiring?” you may have perhaps a fertile field for stating your beliefs, even if they are Christian and of good seed. Otherwise you may be engaging in an effort not different than that of mass advertising and coercion by fear. I have to wonder if Our Lord’s admonition to “go forth and teach all nations” had far more to do, originally, with attraction and example than argument. Perhaps in this regard Walt Whitman was a consummate Christian in that he lived his words that “I and mine do not convince by arguments, similes, rhymes, We convince by our presence.” If that presence is not yet obviously commensurate with Divinity and provocative by difference from the norm by love and the incisive creative courage that is the evidence of that, perhaps there is more to learn before taking on the mantle of responsibility for showing another a way, that shy of of that evidence, may not be complete.

 

[tonyrey]

I had to read a letter of a Native American speaking to a missionary around 1805 for my US history class. He asked why the Christian God had not given the Biblical revelation to the Indians, and why the Christian religion is the right way to worship the “Great Spirit”, as he called God. Answer?

If God had given the Biblical revelation to the Indians the Jews - and every other race - would ask why He hadn’t given it to them!

 

[Tonitz]

Or they would be perfectly happy with their own and maybe eve try to convert the missionary!

 

[Della]

If God had given the Biblical revelation to the Indians the Jews - and every other race - would ask why He hadn’t given it to them!

Well actually, he did. The Church teaches we are all descendants of Adam and Eve. After the fall God made this promise to all of mankind:

Gen. 3:15 I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel."

Then, after the Flood, God made this promise, again to all mankind:

Gen.9:13 I set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. 14 When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, 16 When the bow is in the clouds, I will look upon it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth."

And as the survivors of the Flood moved out to inhabit the earth, they took these promises with them. I’ve been reading the ancient mythologies lately (a favorite of mine) and in these stories of gods and goddesses and elemental forces I see a fractured version of the promises God made to Adam and Eve and to Noah and his family. Apparently, without the charism of infallibility to retain what God has said, the promises were transmuted into tribal legends and myths (I use the word myth here in the broadest sense).

It wasn’t until God revealed himself to Abraham that the charism of the Holy Spirit was given to him to preserve God’s promises as he intended them to be preserved. Moses wrote down the oral traditions God gave to the Children of Abraham and Isaac.

And the Children of Isaac and Jacob kept the revelation given to their ancestors as God commanded them until the time of Christ, who passed this authority on to his Church.

We see from this that God intended to bring his message of love and forgiveness to all men through the Second Adam, Christ. Everything up until him was but preparation. The whole of the OT is the struggle between the Children of Israel and the pagan cultures to retain God’s original promises. So, there is no disparity between the legends of tribal peoples in America and other isolated pockets of the world. What there is is a fractured history, told via mythologies, but the original promises can be seen in most of these myths. Bringing the Christian faith to them merely completes what they have been missing, but the message is for them as much as for Europeans or anyone else in the world.

Sorry for the long answer, but it is impossible to give a biblical history lesson on a forum such as this. I have boiled it down considerably only to show that God had every people and tribe on the planet in mind from the beginning. Christ commissioned the Apostles to “go into the whole world” to “preach to every creature”. Considering the difficulties of travel and the fact the Americas were unknown except to those peoples who happened to stumble upon them, 1400+ years isn’t a bad number of years to have gotten the message to the unknown continents. Even today the Church knows that not everyone will hear, which is why it understands how the redemption applies to them. It’s right there in the Catechism for anyone interested to read:

“Outside the Church there is no salvation”
846 How are we to understand this affirmation, often repeated by the Church Fathers?335 Re-formulated positively, it means that all salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is his Body:
Basing itself on Scripture and Tradition, the Council teaches that the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation: the one Christ is the mediator and the way of salvation; he is present to us in his body which is the Church. He himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and Baptism, and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church which men enter through Baptism as through a door. Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it.336
847 This affirmation is not aimed at those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and his Church:
Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience - those too may achieve eternal salvation.337
848 "Although in ways known to himself God can lead those who, through no fault of their own, are ignorant of the Gospel, to that faith without which it is impossible to please him, the Church still has the obligation and also the sacred right to evangelize all men."338

 

[tonyrey]

Well actually, he did. The Church teaches we are all descendants of Adam and Eve. After the fall God made this promise to all of mankind:

I was making the point that at the outset the Jews alone were entrusted with God’s revelation as the Chosen People from whom the Messiah would come.

 

[Della]

I was making the point that at the outset the Jews alone were entrusted with God’s revelation as the Chosen People from whom the Messiah would come.

Well, that’s not quite the case. As I pointed out, the promise was given to Adam and Eve, not just to Abraham and the Jews. It’s why he was promised that his descendants would be as numerous as the sand on the shore–all who are baptized in Christ are Abraham’s descendants by adoption, as St. Paul tells us. God’s revelation is for all mankind and Christ is his final revelation to man. It’s why no people on the planet should be considered “off limits” for evangelization.

 

[tonyrey]

I was making the point that at the outset the Jews alone were entrusted with God’s revelation as the Chosen People from whom the Messiah would come.

All those statements are true but the fact remains that **the Jews alone **are the Chosen People from whom the prophets and the Messiah came.

“He asked why the Christian God had not given the **Biblical **revelation to the Indians…”

 

[Dave_B]

All those statements are true but the fact remains that **the Jews alone **are the Chosen People from whom the prophets and the Messiah came.
“He asked why the Christian God had not given the **Biblical **revelation to the Indians…”

I believe the Biblical revelation was given to the Jews/Christians, even though they were small in number, due to the faith shown by the prophets/apostles.

But as stated above salvation was/is still available outside of the church if a non-Christian believer in God is sincere in faith and does good works.

“Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience.”

According to the Catholic doctrine. I have no idea what the Anglican church thinks about non-Christians

 

[tonyrey]

I believe the Biblical revelation was given to the Jews/Christians, even though they were small in number, due to the faith shown by the prophets/apostles.

But as stated above salvation was/is still available outside of the church if a non-Christian believer in God is sincere in faith and does good works.

“Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience.”

According to the Catholic doctrine. I have no idea what the Anglican church thinks about non-Christians.

It is impossible to generalise about Anglicans because they have such a wide range of beliefs…

 

[Della]

All those statements are true but the fact remains that **the Jews alone **are the Chosen People from whom the prophets and the Messiah came.

“He asked why the Christian God had not given the **Biblical **revelation to the Indians…”

It wasn’t necessary for their salvation. People think God goes just by “the Book” and that Catholics are “people of the Book”, but God doesn’t and we aren’t. That’s the answer.

St. Paul tells us the pagans have no excuse before God because they have the evidence of nature to show them who God is. He couldn’t have made that claim if God hadn’t given his promise to all mankind in Adam and Eve.

God will not ask us what doctrines we knew and understood, he is going to ask us what we did with the grace he gave us, no matter who we are. The more knowledge we have the more responsible we are before God. It’s a matter of culpability not who received the revelation of God when, you see.